One of the terrible complaints I had as an unbeliever, and one still seen rather often, is the complaint that God is not fair. And possibly all of us have witnessed preachers bleating back that God is fair. Well, I was curious, so I looked up the word “fair”, which is defined as: free from favoritism or self-interest or bias or deception; conforming with established standards or rules
So let's break it down:
- In the New Testament, the word “grace” is translated directly from a word meaning “favoritism”; look it up. God has a lot of that. He chooses to whom He will bestow His favoritism.
- He does have self-interest and bias; He alone is good.
- He does not conform to the established standards or rules of any of the groups of mankind. He is above all standards and rules. He is Lord, which means sovereign.
In my experience, when folks speak of "fairness," typically what they mean is something like "everybody being treated the same according to an unvarying, universal standard." So, when Sally is given a slice of watermelon by her mother and her brother Sammy is not, he complains that "it isn't fair" that Sally got something from Mom that he didn't. He thinks he's entitled to the same treatment by his mother that his sister has experienced and it is "unfair" that this isn't the case. Generally, in my experience, this is what folks mean when they say that something is "unfair."
Atheists, too, when I've engaged with them, think of God being "unfair" in this way. Usually, they resort to the Problem of Evil, or a version of the Euthyphro Dilemma, to make their case. Some humans have it awful, their lives unending and profound misery while others live in the "lap of luxury," even abusing others in order to do so (e.g. drug dealers, criminal oligarchs, politicians, lawyers, etc.). "How is this fair?" atheists have asked me. "If God is loving and all-powerful, shouldn't He move to lift the miserable from their misery and bring down the affluent evil person? That would be more fair."
Well, obviously, according to this common understanding of "fairness," God doesn't appear to be "fair" at all. He might even be evil, since He
could "equalize" things among human beings and doesn't. What's usually going on here is that the God-critical man is holding God to his own, self-serving, human standard, justifying his rejection of God on the basis that God hasn't been as fair with him as He ought to have been, for there are many wealthier, more attractive, more intelligent, more powerful people than the God-critical man is and it's just not "fair."
But why should God conform to the standard of the man? It seems far more reasonable that God should apply His own divine standard across-the-board in the "fair" manner that the atheist wants. This would be more perfectly "fair" wouldn't it, since God is, by definition, perfect? Of course, if God
did "fairly" apply His divine standard, treating us all exactly as we deserve to be treated under His perfect, holy, just standard, we'd all of us be cast into hell the first time we sinned.
As far as God is concerned, an arrogant look is just as much an abomination as murder (
Proverbs 6:16-19); unbelief and bitterness are as much sin as are adultery and rape (
Hebrews 3:13; Hebrews 12:15; Ephesians 4:31). The slothfulness, or dishonesty, or petty selfishness of the atheist would be just as much under God's immediate punishment as the violence, theft and avarice of the criminal oligarch. This isn't the outcome the God-critical man is looking for, though. He wants God to deal harshly with the serial killer over there, the wretched war-monger in Africa, or the vicious gang leader in Colombia, but not with
himself. No, he wants God to be "fair" in a way that brings down those he resents and disapproves of, but that elevates and improves his own circumstances in the way he would like, regardless of his thinking, attitudes and conduct.
Thus, in my experience, the "God isn't fair" complaint is actually often a very self-serving one. Sammy objects to Sally having watermelon when he doesn't get any but conveniently ignores the fact that he snuck a slice of watermelon from the fridge an hour earlier, or disobeyed his mother against the warning that, if he did, he wouldn't get any watermelon, or knows he's allergic to watermelon, and so on. There are myriad good reasons why "life isn't fair" and they never really have anything to do with a flaw in God but in us.
A good NT parable on this question of "fairness" can be found in
Matthew 20:1-16.
